By Dave Stein, CEO and Founder, ES Research Group, Inc.
The sales training industry’s move toward greater consolidation is like a jigsaw puzzle: It’s all there in front of you already, but the real fun is seeing how the CEOs behind the acquisitions are putting the pieces together.
If you’ve been paying attention to the sales training industry lately, you may have noticed some significant changes taking place. Specifically, two training companies have acquired other providers, which has changed the training landscape dramatically. In this column and in the May-June issue ofSales & Marketing Management we’ll look at the companies that are leading the consolidation — why they’re doing it, what they hope to accomplish, and what it means for the sales training buyer.
First, a bit of background. If you have ever looked to buy sales training, you’ve shopped in a marketplace that is very fragmented, with no single dominant player. Growing a sales training company past the $50 million level is rare. By the time you get from the largest company to, say, the 10th largest, you’re close to the single-digit millions in annual revenues. There are a number of reasons why there have been no $500 million sales training companies. Suffice it to say that it’s not out of a lack of desire.
Corporate Visions’ growth through niche acquisitions
Many sales training companies stumbled through the 2008 recession and its lingering aftermath, yet Corporate Visions, Inc. has consistently maintained its vigorous growth trajectory. From a well-defined position in the sales messaging arena, Corporate Visions took note of a market that is changing rapidly and has moved boldly and decisively to broaden its value to clients.
“We decided to expand into those areas where we didn’t have expertise,” CEO Joe Terry told me. “Our idea was to buy companies that were doing something unique and different in the ‘sales conversation’ space, specifically in differentiated messages and how you deliver that message across the buying cycle.”
Eighteen months ago, Corporate Visions purchased WhiteboardSelling to “bolster our content and our tools,” Joe said. With the visual component in place, CVI went on to purchase BayGroup International, a well-recognized sales negotiation and sales execution skills training company, “to get deeper into the sales cycle, and bolster our skills at the middle and late stages of the buying cycle.” Then, in November, Corporate Visions added a business and financial acumen training component with the addition of Executive Conversation. Smart move on their part.
Taken as a whole, these acquisitions clearly accomplish Corporate Vision’s plan to build out from its existing wheelhouse through the content, tools and the complementary expertise of providers known to be exceptional in their own areas of focus.
In 2014, with the mechanics of their recent transitions mostly behind them, Terry sees the company’s position as “never better.”
“You cannot justify a decision until you’ve differentiated it. You cannot maximize the value of that conversation or that decision until you’ve differentiated yourself, you’ve justified it, and you’ve articulated a business value,” he said. “We come in with an end-to-end solution, a curriculum with messaging and tools that support that curriculum. No one else is doing that.”
So, how does Corporate Visions’ acquisition of those three companies benefit you as a sales training buyer? If, after a thorough and objective assessment of your requirements, you determine that your company needs to do a better job of articulating and quantifying value for your customers, it may be worth taking a deeper look at Corporate Visions’ solutions. In this respect, the company has created one-stop shopping, you might say.
On the other hand, if you want to address issues outside of the sales conversation space, another provider may offer a more targeted solution for your situation. A comprehensive needs assessment is the best way to make that determination.
In the next issue, we’ll discuss another sales training provider’s recent acquisitions, which puts it in the leadership position, at least with respect to company size. That company has just blasted far past the elusive $100 million threshold.
More importantly, I’ll help you figure out how this changing landscape of sales training may impact your buying decisions.
Are you getting the training you’re paying for?
Will Brooks, executive vice president and director of marketing at corporate sales training provider The Brooks Group (brooksgroup.com), offers these tips for evaluating the cost and ROI of sales training.
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Make sure it’s customized. The most successful initiatives involve a high level of program customization.
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Make sure the cost of sales training includes some sort of pre-program discovery process. Best-in-class sales training companies will invest time, energy and resources into gaining a rich understanding of your sales team’s strengths, weaknesses, competition, etc., so the training addresses those areas.
- Find out whether the cost of sales training includes reinforcement with measurable outcomes and ongoing coaching. Top-tier sales training companies offer robust approaches to follow-up that ensure that what is taught in the classroom gets used in the field by the program attendees.
